Green Acres is the Place to Be

              Last night I woke up about 3:00 am. I just couldn't sleep, it was hot, and the dog was scratching.  I was just restless. So I got up, made some Sleepy Time tea and sat down in front of the DVR.  What to make me fall asleep, hmmmm......Maybe an installation of Green Acres, that is right. Green Acres from 1966 with Eddie Albert famous Actor for Oklahoma, Falcon Crest.  For those of you really old, he did  Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. Now that is film history. His co-star in the show was the Hungarian beauty Ava Gabor.  Of course Green Acres is on METV.  The channel of the wonderful hits from the past.

               The premise of Green Acres (for those who did not experience the treat), is that Oliver Douglas (Eddie Albert), NYC attorney has always dreamed of leaving the city.   All his life he has wanted to be a farmer.  To work with the land, grow crops and be a contributor to the nation's food economy. Ok, he says it better.  Mr. Douglas (as he is so lovingly called in the show), bought Mr. Haney's run down farm to renovate and turn in to a functioning farm. He drags his uptown wife Lisa (Eva Gabor) to the farm, with the understanding she try it for 6 months. If at that time she still did not want to stay, she could go back to New York.  As the wonderful wives of the 1960's did, Lisa went to the farm outside Hooterville.  The show is set in the world of another show I loved as a girl Petticoat Junction.  The world includes, Hooterville (that Lisa Douglas calls Hootersville), Pixley, Stankwell Falls, and Crabwell Corners. Just the town names are enough to get you giggling. The opening song is wonderful and I am including it at the bottom of the blog for your listening pleasure, courtesy of You Tube.

                The show has a zany cast of eccentric characters starting with Mr. Haney(Pat Buttram).  The seller of the broken down Haney Place. Mr. Haney charges a fee for everything he does.  He is really nothing but a junk dealer, with an old truck that has everything from farm equipment to can openers on it.  One of the episodes I watched, a man came in to his junk/antique store, and had to pay a fee of  $.05 to rent a bottle opener for 3 minutes to open his root beer($.10 for soda). He continues to con Mr. Douglas through out the series.

                Mr. Haney is accompanied  day laborer Eb Dawson (Tom Lester), general store owner, Sam Drucker (Frank Cady), and county agent Hank Kimball (Alvy Moore) but my favorite characters are Fred and Doris Ziffel (Hank Patterson and Barbara Pepper).  The Ziffels have a "son" that appears frequently in the show, his name is Arnold Ziffel (Arnold the Pig).  Arnold is a pig.  A real life white swine that behaves like a human.  I watched an episode last night in which, Mr. Ziffel is standing a the door talking to political pollsters, and then a bus honks in the background. To this Mr. Ziffel says, "Arnold the bus is here, hurry up or you will be late for school."  Then the white pig scurries out the door, carried in his snout a strap with textbooks in it, as he hurries to the bus. I laughed so hard I thought I would cry. Now we come to the funniest part of the show.

                  Everyone in the show but Oliver Douglas lives in an alternate reality, one l call crazyville. Mr. Douglas appears frequently angry at the crazy antics of the people around him. One example of this is that everyone treats Arnold as if he is human. Interestingly, Arnold can sign his name and turn on/off the tv.  Mr. Douglas frequently goes into speeches about the nobility of the American farmer in his suit and tie. The tires frequently fall off his tractor(which seldom works). Lisa Douglas tries to adapt to Hooterville culture. With her broken English and mangling of the English language. She can only cook hotcakes,so they eat them all the time. Lisa calls them hotscakes. In the beginning the are so bad that one episode the batter is used as mortar in the fireplace.  Eb starts calling Mr. and Mrs. Douglas, "mom and dad" sometimes.  Mr. Haney always shows up with just the thing Mr. Douglas needs for his farm, at just the right time.
  
                The first year or two Lisa is wearing a different rich nightgown and cover, each day. She eventually abandons this for a wonderful stylish dress with pearls and earrings like she was dressing in Manhattan. Likewise, Mr. Douglas wears a three piece suit and tie for his farm.  Through out the show the farm does get slightly updated. However, it is mostly drab, falling down and Mr. and Mrs. Douglas sleep on separate cots in their bedroom.  It never really improves in 6 seasons. The Douglas' have to climb the telephone pole to make phone calls. The show is full of slapstick comedy, that will make you roar.

               There is a cross over from Petticoat Junction (another 60's show I love on METV) which features The Shady Rest Hotel Run by Kate Bradley (Bea Benedaret) and her three teenage daughters, Billie Jo (Meredith McCray), Bobbie Jo (Lori Saunders) and Bettie Jo(Linda Kaye). Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) lives with them and is always looking for a great business deal/scheme. He mostly sits in the rocking chair on the porch, sleeping. The hotel residents get to Sam Druckers Store on the Hooterville Cannonball, that acts more like a city bus than a train.  The engineer is a scatterbrained Floyd Smoot (Rufe Davis). The Beverly Hillbillies (another 60's sitcom) exists in the world of Hooterville as a TV show, go figure?? In fact they put on a play based on a episode.  It was quite funny.  Green Acres was actually a spin off of Petticoat Junction.

                Now after watching the 2 episodes I recorded, I was more awake than ever. So I am not sure that is a good suggestion for insomnia.  The tea I am sure helped but I had great dreams of talking pigs when I went back to my bed.  Arnold invaded my sleep!!  I love METV, and if you can get the channel I highly suggest a visit on a regular basis.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbk81X6WHA4----the theme for Green Acres